Google Nexus 5 (Unlocked)

Pros

Killer price for an unlocked smartphone.
Fast next-generation CPU and GPU.
Beautiful full HD display.
Android is better than ever with 4.4.1 "KitKat," and the camera is much improved.
Solid battery life.

Cons

Hardware still isn't quite class-leading on all fronts.
Middling voice quality through the microphone.

Bottom Line

Google has delivered an impressive smartphone with the Nexus 5 from LG, an unlocked powerhouse with a palatable price and solid performance, and the new Android 4.4.1 KitKat update largely fixes the phone's initial camera problems.

7 Dec 2013

The Nexus 5 is here—and now even better than before. Thanks to Google's obvious subsidy on what should be a $600 smartphone, the Nexus 5 ($349/16GB; $399/32GB) is the best value on the market for an unlocked handset. Manufactured by LG, it features a host of improvements over last year's Nexus 4, including a 1080p 5-inch display, an 8-megapixel camera with HDR+, and LTE support. All of that combines to make the Nexus 5 our top pick for unlocked smartphones.

Editors' Note (12/6/2013): This review has been amended to include the camera improvements added with the 4.4.1 Android update. In our retesting, we found that the update fixes most of the camera's flaws we encountered in our original review. As a result, the rating has increased from 4 to 4.5.

Design, Display, and Connectivity

The Nexus 5 is incredibly well balanced to hold, and feels lighter than the Apple iPhone 5s even though it isn't (and I confirmed it in our lab; it weighs 4.6 ounces, versus 3.9 for the iPhone 5). The Nexus 5 measures 5.43 by 2.72 by 0.34 inches (HWD). It's encased entirely in a comfortable, rubberized soft touch housing. The left panel holds the volume rocker switch, on the top edge, there's a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the right side houses the Power button at the top, with a micro-SIM slot below it. The bottom edge holds a microphone and the mono speaker, which is a bit of a disappointment compared with the HTC One Google Play Edition, with its far superior stereo speakers.

The back panel features a large Nexus logo, a small LG logo, and curiously, a raised half-inch circle for the camera sensor, with an LED flash below it. The raised portion just looks strange; it appears durable, with a thin plastic ring around the edge, so I'm not convinced it will scratch easily. It's just not a particularly clean design. That's the only blemish, though, on what's an otherwise attractive device from a hardware standpoint. Plus, you can get one in white or black; our black test unit looks very sleek, if somewhat anonymous.

The full HD IPS display offers 1,920-by-1,080-pixel resolution, an extremely tight 445ppi, and Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It looks sharp, colorful, and detailed, although it's not quite as bright as the Samsung Galaxy S4, and it lacks the SGS4's oversaturated AMOLED colors—which can be a good thing, depending on your viewpoint. Typing with the on-screen keyboard is very easy in both portrait and landscape modes. Google defaults the haptic feedback to be extremely subtle, which I actually enjoyed, and normally I'm not a fan. The built-in sensor array includes GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, proximity, ambient light, pressure, and something called Hall Effect, which apparently detects magnetic field changes; it's not clear what it's used for.

For connectivity, the Nexus 5 works with a ton of bands, but with a decidedly American bias, as our sister site ExtremeTech reports. Here in the U.S., you'll get the best experience possible on AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint, including support for Sprint's brand new Spark LTE network. Verizon Wireless refuses to authenticate the Nexus 5 on its network, so you can't use it there. Overseas, you'll generally see HSPA+ compatibility rather than LTE. There's also 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi on both the 2.4 and 5GHz bands, plus Bluetooth 4.0 LE and NFC. I had no problem connecting to our WPA2-encrypted 5GHz test network. I tested the Nexus 5 with an AT&T SIM card. Outdoors in midtown Manhattan, I saw roughly 3-4Mbps down and 3Mbps up on a series of Ookla Speedtest.net tests, which reflects AT&T's increasingly crowded LTE network in New York City.

Call Quality, OS, and Apps

This is a decent phone for voice calls, but not great. It's not the earpiece; voice quality there is fantastic, with a clear, warm, loud tone that doesn't vibrate the handset and yet delivers clear sound from callers. The problem is on the other end; transmissions through the microphone had plenty of hiss and distortion. My voice was intelligible to other callers, but it sounded muddled and indistinct. Reception is fine.

Calls sounded fine through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset, and I had no problem triggering voice dialing over Bluetooth. The mono speakerphone on the bottom left edge of the handset sounded clear but not loud enough, and with more than a touch of distortion at the top volume setting. The 2300mAh battery is non-removable; on the plus side, the Nexus 5 supports wireless charging out of the box, and it scored a solid 14 hours 43 minutes of talk time on a single charge—that's more than two hours longer than the Motorola Moto X and almost five hours longer than the Apple iPhone 5s.

Under the hood is a 2.26GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, a 450MHz Adreno 330 GPU, and 2GB RAM. This is one fast phone, with smooth animations, task switching, and scrolling. It also installed my usual collection of Android apps very quickly. It's faster and smoother than an iPhone 5 I had on hand for comparison; everyone who complains about Android's inherently jerkier scrolling will still see some of that when browsing the Web, but not at all in home screen or app drawer animations, which are lightning fast.

Benchmark scores across the board are very good, thanks to the next-generation system on a chip, and the Nexus 5 positively screams on Browsermark and on 3D tests. Some results still trail the Galaxy Note 3, which has the same processor and GPU but more RAM. Still, the Nexus 5 is the perfect phone for gaming; Asphalt 8: Airborne looks incredible, with smooth frame rates and only an occasional hint of slowdown even with a full fleet of computer-controlled cars on screen.

About the Author

Jamie Lendino is the Editor-In-Chief of ExtremeTech.com, and has written for PCMag.com and the print magazine since 2005. Recently, Jamie ran the consumer electronics and mobile teams at PCMag, and before that, he was the Editor In Chief of Smart Device Central, PCMag's dedicated smartphone site, for its entire three-year run from 2006 to 2009. Prior to PCMag, he was a contributing editor for Laptop and mediabistro.com. His writing has also appeared in the print editions of Popular Science, Electronic Musician, and Sound and Vision, as well as on CNET and ConsumerReports.org.

Jamie is also a producer and engineer for interactive media. He has created audio for over 30 ... See Full Bio